The Memoirs of Victor Hugo

M. Pèdre-Lacaze came up arm-in-arm with Napoleon Duchatel. Both were in high spirits. They lighted their cigars from Franc d’Houdetot’s cigar and said:

“Do you know? Genoude is going to bring in an impeachment on his own account. They would not allow him to sign the Left’s impeachment. He would not be beaten, and now the Ministry is between two fires. On the left, the entire Left; on the right, M. de Genoude.”

Napoleon Duchâtel added: “They say that Duvergier de Hauranne has been carried about in triumph on the shoulders of the crowd.”

We had returned to the bridge. M. Vivien was crossing, and came up to us. With his big, old, wide-brimmed hat and his coat buttoned up to his cravat the ex-Minister Of Justice looked like a policeman.

“Where are you going?” he said to me. “What is happening is very serious!”

Certainly at this moment one feels that the whole constitutional machine is rocking. It no longer rests squarely on the ground. It is out of plumb. One can hear it cracking.

The crisis is complicated by the disturbed condition of the whole of Europe.

The King, nevertheless, is very calm, and even cheerful. But this game must not be played too far. Every rubber won serves but to make up the total of the rubber lost.

Vivien recounted to us that the King had thrown an electoral reform bill into his drawer, saying as he did so: “That is for my successor!” “That was Louis XV.‘s mot,” added Vivien, “supposing reform should prove to be the deluge.”

It appears to be true that the King interrupted M. Salandrouze when he was laying before him the grievances of the “Progressists,” and asked him brusquely: “Are you selling many carpets?” *

* M. Salandrouze was a manufacturer of carpets.

At this same reception of the Progressists the King noticed M. Blanqui, and graciously going up to him asked:

“Well, Monsieur Blanqui, what do people talk about? What is going on?”

“Sire,” replied M. Blanqui, “I ought to tell the King that in the departments, and especially at Bordeaux, there is a great deal of agitation.”

“Ah!” interrupted the King. “More agitation!” and he turned his back upon M. Blanqui.

While we were talking Vivien exclaimed: “Listen! I fancy I can hear firing!”

A young staff officer, addressing General d’Houdetot with a smile, asked: “Are we going to stay here long?”

“Why?” said Franc d’Houdetot.

“Well, I am invited out to dinner,” said the officer.

At this moment a group of women in mourning and children dressed in black passed rapidly along the other pavement of the bridge. A man held the eldest child by the hand. I looked at him and recognized the Duke de Montebello.

“Hello!” exclaimed d’Houdetot, “the Minister of Marine!” and he ran over and conversed for a moment with M. de Montebello. The Duchess had become frightened, and the whole family was taking refuge on the left bank of the river.

Vivien and I returned to the Palace of the Chamber. D’Houdetot quitted us. In an instant we were surrounded. Said Boissy to me:

“You were not at the Luxembourg? I tried to speak upon the situation in Paris. I was hooted. At the mot, ‘the capital in danger,’ I was interrupted, and the Chancellor, who had come to preside expressly for that purpose, called me to order. And do you know what General Gourgaud said to me? ‘Monsieur de Boissy, I have sixty guns with their caissons filled with grape-shot. I filled them myself.’ I replied: ‘General, I am delighted to know what is really thought at the Château about the situation.’”

At this moment Durvergier de Hauranne, hatless, his hair dishevelled, and looking pale but pleased, passed by and stopped to shake hands with me.

I left Duvergier and entered the Chamber. A bill relative to the privileges of the Bank of Bordeaux was being debated. A man who was talking through his nose occupied the tribune, and M. Sauzet was reading the articles of the bill with a sleepy air. M. de Belleyme, who was coming out, shook hands with me and exclaimed: “Alas!”

Several deputies came up to me, among them M. Marie, M. Roger (of Loiret), M. de Rémusat, and M. Chambolle. I related to them the incident of the tearing down of the flag, which was serious in view of the audacity of the attack.

“What is even more serious,” said one of them, “is that there is something very bad behind all this. During the night the doors of more than fifteen mansions were marked with a cross, among the marked houses being those of the Princess de Liéven, in the Rue Saint Florentin, and of Mme. de Talhouët.”

“Are you sure of this?” I asked.

“With my own eyes I saw the cross upon the door of Mme. de Liéven’s house,” he replied.

President Franck-Carré met M. Duchâtel this morning and said: “Well, how goes it?”

“All is well,” answered the Minister.

“What are you going to do about the riot?”

“I am going to let the rioters alone at the rendezvous they arranged for themselves. What can they do in the Place Louis XV. and the Champs-Elysées? It is raining. They will tramp about there all day. To-night they will be tired out and will go home to bed.”

M. Etienne Arago entered hastily at this juncture and said: “There are seven wounded and two killed already. Barricades have been erected in the Rue Beaubourg and in the Rue Saint Avoye.”

After a suspension of the session M. Guizot arrived. He ascended the tribune and announced that the King had summoned M. Mole, to charge him with the formation of a new Cabinet.

Triumphant shouts from the Opposition, shouts of rage from the majority.

The session ended amid an indescribable uproar.

I went out with the deputies and returned by way of the quays.

In the Place de la Concorde the cavalry continued to charge. An attempt to erect two barricades had been made in the Rue Saint Honoré. The paving-stones in the Marché Saint Honoré were being torn up. The overturned omni-buses, of which the barricades had been made, had been righted by the troops. In the Rue Saint Honoré the crowd let the Municipal Guards go by, and then stoned them in the back. A multitude was swarming along the quays like irritated ants. A very pretty woman in a green velvet hat and a large cashmere shawl passed by amid a group of men wearing blouses and with bared arms. She had raised her skirt very high on account of the mud, with which she was much spattered; for it was raining every minute. The Tuileries were closed. At the Carrousel gates the crowd had stopped and was gazing through the arcades at the cavalry lined up in battle array in front of the palace.

Near the Carrousel Bridge I met M. Jules Sandeau. “What do you think of all this?” he queried.

“That the riot will be suppressed, but that the revolution will triumph.”

On the Quai de la Ferraille I happened upon somebody else I knew. Coming towards me was a man covered with mud to the neck, his cravat hanging down, and his hat battered. I recognized my excellent friend Antony Thouret. Thouret is an ardent Republican. He had been walking and speech-making since early morning, going from quarter to quarter and from group to group.

“Tell me, now, what you really want?” said I. “Is it the Republic?”

“Oh! no, not this time, not yet,” he answered. “What we want is reform – no half measures, oh! dear no, that won’t do at all. We want complete reform, do you hear? And why not universal suffrage?”

“That’s the style!” I said as we shook hands.

Patrols were marching up and down the quay, while the crowd shouted “Hurrah for the line!” The shops were closed and the windows of the houses open.

In the Place du Châtelet I heard a man say to a group:

“It is 1830 over again!”

I passed by the Hotel de Ville and along the Rue Saint Avoye. At the Hotel de Ville all was quiet. Two National Guards were walking to and fro in front of the gate, and there were no barricades in the Rue Saint Avoye. In the Rue Rambuteau a few National Guards, in uniform, and wearing their side arms, came and went. In the Temple quarter they were beating to arms.

Up to the present the powers that be have made a show of doing without the National Guard. This is perhaps prudent. A force of National Guards was to have taken a hand. This morning the guard on duty at the Chamber refused to obey orders. It is said that a National Guardsman of the 7th Legion was killed just now while interposing between the people and the troops.